Alante Vallejo’s jeans and red shirt lay strewn across a sidewalk where Chicago meets Evanston on Friday afternoon as two of his friends watched homicide investigators begin trying to figure out who killed him.

The tragic scene on the Rogers Park block stunned them both, coming less than a week after they said Vallejo proudly collected his diploma from Evanston Township High School.

“I just graduated with him,” said a tearful Taylor Harris, 18. “He was happy to graduate.”

Two hours earlier, about 1:45 p.m., five loud gun shots were heard on the 1900 block of West Howard Street. Shot was Vallejo, who lived less than a mile away on the 200 block of Ridge Avenue in Evanston, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

The 18-year-old was taken to Presence St. Francis Hospital in Evanston, where he was pronounced dead at 2:26 p.m., according to the medical examiner's office. Chicago police said a second man, about age 20, who was shot in the foot later went to an Evanston hospital for treatment.

Officials earlier had said the seriously injured victim was 16.

A woman living in an apartment above where the shooting took place said she urgently told her five-year-old son to get away from the window after the burst. “Sometimes those bullets can fly anywhere,” she said.

Tears welled in Parrish Livingston's eyes as he talked proudly of Vallejo’s graduation and how hard it is in some neighborhoods to make it that far. Vallejo, he said, earned his degree for his mother.

“His mom was his main thing,” Livingston said. “He just wanted to make her happy.”

Harris, who said she had been in Vallejo’s class since the third grade, said he was funny and the person “everybody used to cling to.”

Sources said police are investigating whether gangs were behind the shooting, though Livingston said he did not believe his friend could have been the target.

“I don’t know when they are going to open their eyes and see,” local business owner Ernst Medard said in mild disgust. “Gang-related — what’s that?”

Family members declined to comment Friday evening.

Earlier in the Morgan Park neighborhood, a 23-year-old man was shot in the leg in the 11200 block of South Marshfield Avenue about 2 p.m., Cooper said. The man was in good condition at an area hospital, but the exact hospital and the circumstances of the shooting were not immediately available.